Novelist Salman Rushdie's knighthood has sparked a terror scare in Britain after Osama Bin Laden's deputy threatened retaliation for the Islam 'insult'. The writer was included in British monarch Queen Elizabeth II's Honours List last month (16Jun07) but the accolade was immediately slammed by both Iran and Pakistan as anti-Islamic. The countries took offence to Rushdie's Muslim references in controversial 1988 work The Satanic Verses, and issued a fatwa against him a year later.Now terrorist network al-Qaeda have vowed a revenge attack on Britain for awarding the controversial honour. In a 20-minute audiotape posted on a website used by Islamic militants, Bin Laden's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri said the group was preparing a "very precise response".A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says, "We will not allow terrorists to undermine the British way of life." His fourth novel The Satanic Verses, which was published in 1988 proked violent reactions from Muslims all over the world.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the then Supreme leader of Iran called on the author to be killed and Rushdie spent the best part of a decade underground.

His recent knighthood for services to literature has reignited the Muslim hatred of the author. And new calls for his death were made by several Muslim groups who were insulted by the honour.

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